The train car smelled like steel and fear.

Metal groaned above them with every shift of the rails. Outside the sealed doors, something kept pacing – just out of sight. Something that dragged its limbs. Sometimes it scraped. Sometimes it tapped. For the last ten minutes, it had only pounded. Now even that had stopped.

Dan sat on the floor near the rear doors, back against the emergency latch. His hoodie was stained with dried blood – not his – and the edges of his fingers glowed faintly. Not enough to heal. Just enough to remind him he still could.

Alyssa sat across from him on one of the long benches, elbows on her knees, crowbar across her lap. She hadn't put it down since they got inside.

"I think they're gone," she said softly.

Dan glanced toward the front. The survivors were quiet now. Thirty-two people. Tourists. Locals. A couple of kids. A guide in a blue vest who hadn't said a word since the tunnel. No one dared to turn the lights on.

"For now," Dan replied.

Alyssa looked at him. "You really think more are coming?"

"Yeah." He let out a breath. "This feels like a pause. Not an ending."

Silence stretched between them, long and taut.

Then Alyssa asked, "Why do you do it?"

Dan blinked. "Do what?"

"This." She gestured vaguely at the train. "All of it. Risking your life. Jumping in front of things that could eat your face. Healing people who might not make it. Why?"

Dan ran a hand through his hair, the strands damp with sweat. He didn't answer right away.

"I guess," he said, "because I know what it feels like to be the one no one can save."

Alyssa didn't respond.

"My parents died in a car crash," he continued. "I was ten. I was in the back seat. I watched them die. Couldn't move. Couldn't even scream. Just sat there and waited for someone else to do something."

She swallowed.

"After that, it was April. She pulled me out of the wreck. Dragged me across the road and called for help. I thought she was a superhero."

Dan smiled faintly – just for a second.

"Then she died too. Seven years ago. And I realized... no one's coming. Not really. So, I became the guy who does. I became a paramedic. Not to patch things up. To get there first. To run into fire, not away."

Alyssa looked down at the crowbar. Her knuckles were white.

"I hated you for a while," she said quietly.

Dan blinked. "What?"

"You and Max. After the hospital. After Jack. After everything." Her voice cracked, just a little. "I thought, if you two hadn't shown up, none of this would've happened."

Dan didn't argue.

"But then we would've died. Chloe. Me. Everyone." She shook her head. "So... that hate didn't last. Now it's just anger. At the world. At myself."

He leaned forward slightly. "Why yourself?"

She hesitated. "Because I should've been more. Stronger. I always said I'd protect Chloe. But she's the one keeping me alive now. She's braver. Smarter. More focused. And I'm just... here. Punching things."

Dan met her eyes. "That's not nothing."

She tried to laugh. "It feels like it."

"You got thirty-two people in this train alive. And Chloe still looks at you like you're the one who can fix everything."

Alyssa looked away.

He leaned back, hands behind his head. "So why are you here?"

She didn't answer right away.

"I came for Liz. And Chloe. But that's not it." She lowered her voice. "I guess I just... I didn't want to be the one left behind again."

Dan turned to her, curious. She didn't meet his eyes.

The moment stretched.

Then a soft voice from further down the train broke the silence.

"Hey." A little boy, maybe eight, stood beside the bench, clutching a dented lunchbox.

"Are we safe?"

Dan gave a tired smile. "For now, yeah."

Alyssa forced a nod. "But stay away from the doors."

The boy nodded and returned to his mother. The quiet resumed.

Alyssa rested her head against the window. "You think we'll make it out of this?"

Dan looked at the ceiling.

"I think we have to."

…………………

The train car had settled into uneasy stillness.

Outside the walls, the pounding had stopped. Whatever creatures had stalked the tunnel were gone – or waiting. Inside, the survivors slept fitfully, huddled under coats or backpacks. A mother hummed softly in Japanese to calm her toddler. Someone whispered prayers.

Alyssa sat cross-legged now, her back to the window, arms resting on her knees. Dan had moved closer, sitting beside her on the floor. His glow was gone – his powers drained for now but his presence still felt steady.

"I meant what I said earlier," she murmured, voice low. "About being angry."

Dan didn't answer right away.

"I used to think I'd be good in a crisis," Alyssa went on. "I was sarcastic. Quick on my feet. Good at pretending to be brave. Figured if the world ended, I'd roll with it."

She scoffed quietly. "Turns out, I freeze. I overthink. I lash out at people trying to help. And then when I finally got powers... I didn't feel strong. I felt exposed. Like someone ripped off the skin I was hiding under."

Dan looked at her carefully. "It's not fake strength, Alyssa. What you're doing? It counts."

She shook her head. "Chloe's the strong one. Always was. She's the one who had plans. Got scholarships. Learned Japanese because she wanted to read Murakami in the original."

He smiled faintly. "That's a very Chloe thing."

Alyssa nodded. "And me? I cut class. Got into fights. Told myself I didn't care, because caring meant failing. If I never aimed at anything, I couldn't disappoint anyone."

She paused.

"But now people are looking at me like I matter. Like I'm someone they're counting on. And I don't know who that version of me is."

Dan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Maybe that's the version you become."

Alyssa gave him a sideways glance. "You're good at this. Talking like a therapist with muscles."

Dan laughed under his breath. "I've had practice. And I was never great at therapy, just... surviving."

She looked down at her hands – scraped, callused, still trembling slightly from the last fight.

"I'm scared all the time," she admitted.

Dan nodded. "Me too."

They sat in silence for a few breaths.

"I thought maybe..." She hesitated, then covered it with a shrug. "Never mind."

Dan didn't press. But something changed in his posture. A slight turn toward her. A tension that wasn't fear.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"You're here," he said gently. "That means something."

Alyssa glanced up. Her eyes met his – and held.

Then a screech echoed faintly from further down the tunnel. Distant. Metal on metal. Something stirring.

They both stiffened.

Alyssa tightened her fists in her gauntlets. Dan stood slowly, checking the others.

He reached out a hand to her without thinking.

She took it.

Their fingers stayed locked a second longer than they needed to.

Then both let go, and neither said a word.

…………………

The train car had grown colder.

The emergency lights flickered once, then dimmed to a dull amber. Somewhere far down the tunnel, something let out a distant metallic shriek. But it didn't return. The pounding was still absent.

Dan moved quietly down the aisle, checking on the survivors – offering a hand, a word, a nod. The glow in his palms had faded, but people still reached for him like he was carrying something sacred.

Alyssa stayed near the middle of the car, crouched beside an older couple with backpacks full of tourist pamphlets. She asked them something in slow, halting Japanese. The woman blinked, then smiled politely and answered back.

Alyssa nodded. "I said... we're okay. Stay seated. We're working on a plan."

Her pronunciation was stiff, but it got through.

"You speak Japanese?" Dan asked, surprised as he joined her.

"Chloe dragged me to night classes," Alyssa muttered. "She was into the language. I was into the snacks."

One of the seated survivors – an elderly Japanese woman in a faded pink cardigan—raised her hand gently.

Alyssa crouched beside her. "Daijoubu desu ka?"

The woman didn't answer. Not directly. She spoke, slow and melodic. Her voice rasped like someone long used to being quiet, and now remembering how to speak.

"Once," the woman said, "in the deep forests around Kyoto... there was a fox with no name."

Alyssa frowned. "A fox?"

Dan leaned in.

The old woman continued in Japanese, her voice soft but clear. Others in the car went quiet to listen – even the children.

"Each night, it came down the mountain," she said. "It wore a different mask each time – one for sorrow, one for joy, one for hunger. The villagers feared it. Not because it killed. But because it took names."

She held up one finger.

"When it found someone weak... someone whose name had been forgotten or buried... it placed a mask on them. And when the mask came off – there was no one left inside."

A low murmur spread through the train.

A man near the front whispered something – then louder, "I saw that. In the station. There were children with masks. They didn't speak. Just watched."

A mother shushed her daughter. Someone crossed themselves.

Dan crouched next to Alyssa. "They're not just monsters. They're harvesting people."

"Or rewriting them," Alyssa said. She looked shaken. "Earlier... I saw one try to do it to a man who resisted. His eyes went white. His whole face went blank. Like he didn't know who he was anymore."

She rubbed her arms.

The older woman touched Alyssa's wrist lightly.

"Kitsune," she said. "Not all are wicked. Some wear smiles. Some do not."

A pause.

"But those who smile too long... are the ones who lie."

A harsh noise echoed from the tunnel ahead. A clank, then a long dragging scrape. Something was coming.

Dan stood instantly, body tensed.

"I think story time's over," Alyssa muttered, already moving toward the front.

Just as she did, a man in a transit uniform stepped into view. Mid-50s, glasses cracked, carrying a utility bag.

"I work for Kyoto Municipal Transit," he said in broken English. "I can drive the train."

Dan's eyes widened. "You can get us out of here?"

The man nodded. "I... think so. If power holds. We go north. Two stops. Then – above ground."

Alyssa glanced at Dan. "You trust him?"

"More than I trust whatever that sound was."

The man moved to the front console. The survivors shifted, gripping seats and bars. Alyssa knelt beside a small child and whispered something reassuring in Japanese.

Dan looked down the tunnel, then at the people gathered behind them. His voice was calm but clipped.

"Everyone hold tight. This is going to be loud."

…………………

The train jolted, hard.

Metal screamed beneath them as ancient wheels ground against rusted track. The emergency lights flickered to a deeper red, then steadied – barely.

The survivors braced. Some held onto bars. Others crouched low. A few were praying now, heads bowed. The driver muttered under his breath, fingers flying across the ancient console.

The tunnel ahead was black. Total.

Dan stood near the front, one hand steadying himself against the wall, the other flexing. His palm glowed faintly again – not healing. Just ready. Alyssa crouched in the middle of the car, her legs braced wide, crowbar resting against her shoulder like a bat.

"Here we go," she muttered.

The train picked up speed. Slow at first. Then faster. The wheels clattered like bones rolling down stairs.

Then came the sound.

It wasn't a roar. Not exactly.

It was a scratching – first soft, then louder, then everywhere. Along the ceiling. The walls. The floor beneath them. Like claws, or fingernails, or something far too long and far too many.

Alyssa's eyes darted to the windows. "What the hell—"

Shapes appeared.

First shadows. Then limbs. Crawling. Slithering. Yokai.

They weren't running toward the train – they were waiting on the walls and ceiling, waiting to latch on.

One slammed into the windshield. The driver screamed. Dan moved instantly, throwing his forearm in front of the man's head just as the glass spiderwebbed inward. The glow in Dan's hand flared, and the yokai recoiled – hissing, steaming where its flesh touched the light.

A second one landed on the roof above them.

The whole car shook.

A child screamed.

"Roof!" someone shouted.

Alyssa climbed onto a bench and kicked open the emergency ceiling hatch. "Go!"

Dan climbed the inner ladder fast. The hatch clanged open, and cold tunnel air hit him like a slap. He pulled himself onto the train roof – just as the yokai dropped in front of him, hunched and waiting. It was huge – spidery, humanoid, its limbs bent backward, and its face obscured by a smooth, waxy surface with no eyes.

Dan ducked as a claw swept over his head, then drove his palm forward into its chest.

The glow ignited.

The creature shrieked, its body buckling inward from the soul-burn. It stumbled, caught itself – and lunged again.

Dan grabbed the fire extinguisher bolted to the roof access panel. Ripped it free. Swung it like a warhammer.

One hit to the skull. A crunch.

Second hit. A collapse.

Third hit. The yokai stopped moving.

Inside the car, Alyssa shouted, "We've got more!"

Three more slammed into the windows. One began to crack the side door open, bending the frame.

Alyssa grabbed the crowbar, charged forward, and jammed it through the door gap just as the yokai began to squeeze through.

Its face was wrong – too smooth. Its mouth ran sideways across the cheek. It whispered something in a voice that sounded like broken violins.

Alyssa didn't let it finish.

She swung the crowbar up into its throat and shoved it backward with everything she had.

The thing screeched and fell off the side. The door slammed back shut.

Dan climbed back down the hatch, breathing hard. His hoodie was soaked with sweat.

"We're almost there," he said.

"Where's 'there'?" Alyssa snapped, panting.

Dan pointed. "Next stop— Matsugasaki."

Another screech, then the train lurched hard.

A crack. A shriek. Then—

Impact.

Everything slammed forward. Windows shattered. People screamed. Alyssa grabbed a handrail, her shoulder wrenched. Dan covered two children with his body as the car tilted, screeched along the track – then skidded to a stop.

Silence.

Smoke. Sparks. The tunnel gone.

Matsugasaki Station.

And it was already on fire.

…………………

The train doors jammed.

Sparks hissed from the roof as the wrecked front car leaned sideways against the platform. Smoke filled the air – thick and sour. Somewhere beyond the broken windows, people were screaming.

Dan forced the rear doors open with his shoulder. Metal shrieked, then gave way. He jumped down, boots hitting cracked concrete. Alyssa landed beside him, one hand gripping a rail, the other wrapped around her crowbar like it was the only thing that made sense anymore.

"Move!" she shouted back. "Get out, now!"

The survivors followed – bleeding, bruised, dazed. A child was carried. Someone in a business suit crawled. Two tourists were sobbing but still moving. Dan turned and yanked a woman with a sprained ankle out just as a small fire bloomed beneath the train.

And then the station came into view.

Matsugasaki was a war zone.

The platform was scattered with overturned vending machines, shattered signs, broken benches. Smoke clung to the ceiling like a low fog. And the yokai were already here.

Six of them – maybe more – twisting, monstrous shapes. One walked like a man but with arms too long and a head that lolled side to side. Another skittered across the wall with jointless grace. A third dragged a body behind it like a toy on a leash.

But people were fighting back.

A woman in a grey raincoat was swinging a broken stop sign like a halberd. A man with a shattered shinbone still threw bottles from behind a newsstand. A group of teenagers – uniforms torn, eyes wild – jabbed at a yokai with kendo sticks.

Dan didn't hesitate.

He sprinted across the platform toward the largest yokai – one that towered nearly eight feet, its face hidden beneath a wooden placard etched with kanji.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Try me."

The thing turned.

Dan raised both hands. The glow lit up like a flare.

It lunged.

He met it – hands pressed flat against its chest.

And for the first time, he pushed.

The light exploded.

Soul energy tore through the creature's body, ripping it apart from the inside. Its chest cracked open, not with gore, but with steam and ash. It screamed – and then it was gone.

The civilians gasped.

Alyssa hit the ground beside him, both fists clenched – gauntlets shimmering, the air around them distorted by sheer weight. Her boots cracked the concrete where she landed.

She surged forward and slammed her fist into a crawling yokai's side – the impact crumpled it like wet cardboard, ribs imploding with a sound like splitting stone. The creature screeched and staggered—

She pivoted low, her other fist arcing upward with amplified mass, catching it under the chin.

The yokai lifted off the ground. Its spine folded midair. It didn't land.

Dan turned. "They're not demons!"

"What?" she shouted, already charging again.

"They can die!" He pointed to the broken creature. "They don't need soul weapons or powers. They bleed."

A pause.

Then one of the teenagers jabbed forward again – his kendo stick broke, but the yokai reeled. The others took heart. They surged in.

A full brawl erupted – desperate, bloody, real.

Dan caught a woman falling backward and steadied her. "Stay behind the line!" he called. "Use whatever you've got! Blunt weapons. Fire. Movement. Hit them fast!"

Alyssa spotted a slithering yokai lunging toward a child near the vending machines.

She didn't hesitate.

She ran straight at it and jumped – gravity around her gauntlets swelling mid-air. Her fists came down like meteors.

The yokai's skull exploded against the floor.

She landed hard, skidding through cracked tile, and scooped the child up in one arm.

"Got you," she whispered. "You're okay."

The child clung to her, crying.

Alyssa looked down at her gauntlets – still smouldering.

I'm not who I was. But maybe that's the point.

She tightened her grip. "I've got you," she whispered again. This time, like a promise.

The fight burned fast and brutal.

One man was bitten – Dan reached him in time and slowed the bleeding with his glow, pressing his hands to the wound until the pulse steadied. Another woman fell – but Alyssa lifted her by the collar and dragged her back behind a trash bin.

And then, just as suddenly – it ended.

The last yokai fell. The last scream faded.

Dan stood near the smashed hood of the train, chest heaving. His hands shook, not from fear but from how much he'd just given.

A hush spread across the platform.

People gathered around. Exhausted. Bloodied. But alive.

He looked around – counted them. Thirty-two survivors before.

Now?

Forty-six.

Dan climbed onto the hood of the train. Smoke curled around his legs.

He looked out at them all – strangers, fighters, the newly broken and the barely holding on.

"We're not done."

Dan's voice was hoarse, but it carried.

"There are more out there. People who still think no one's coming."

He met their eyes, one by one. "Let's prove them wrong."

No one cheered. But no one doubted him either.

And beneath the platform lights, still flickering in wounded rhythm, something began to feel real again.

Hope.

Down the tunnel, beyond the curve, something watched.

Not a yokai. Not human.

Just… waiting.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.